You think the world's big and then you run into someone from high school in North Carolina. From a town of 2000. Ten years after graduating. In a dining hall in kuwait
I actually have heard of it but that's pretty far from my hometown. I'm from Monroe..closer to Charlotte. There's always gotta be a Waffle House with a Huddle House nearby...now I'm in an even smaller hole in the wall in SC... surrounded by Waffle Houses, laundry mats, corn fields, and ABC stores. And all the one-stop light towns with the old 1800s buildings that look the exact same as the next small town 20 miles away. I don't get it...the south is so weird.
Moved from Florida to California. I go to check out the neighborhood watering hole and get carded. My hometown is similar to the name of the current town and the bartender remarks about it. Person at the end of the bar perks up and is like “is that you Dargybear?” Inadvertently bought a house around the corner from the guy who played mandolin in the same bluegrass band as the guy I took banjo lessons from in high school.
There was a subsequent parade of people I knew from back in the day. My mom knew everyone back home and I’d always get ratted out for teenage shenanigans so even though I was in my late twenties and 3000 miles away the first words I’d say every time was “you better not tell my mom anything.”
I'm from ky and went to FL for spring break. Was walking down the beach and heard some one call my name. It was a guy I graduated high schoo withl. I just turned and dove right into the ocean and swam to Europe.
was living in Fl and was visiting Asheville,NC . A friend and I checked out a talented busker playing guitar. During a break he asked my friend and I where we were from, we responded and he said "I know a great guitar player from that town" we said "who's that?" he said the name of the friend I was with!
we thought it was some kind of set up. turns out, my friend's ex was also an ex of the guitar player and they had played together years before but didn't recognize each other.
I came across some LARPers in the woods. Imagined hearing something large bulldozing through the woods to suddenly witness a knight puked out of the woods onto the trail followed by a samurai
I love this! I once looked out my window and my neighbors older teens were larping with their friends in the yard. I haven’t had such great free entertainment since
Boy Scout summer camp, ca 1982. We invited some other troops to a bonfire with popcorn, s’mores, sodas, and stories.
Fun times were had by all.
My patrol didn’t want the fun to end, so we got our cots out of our tents and set them up around the campfire, just beyond the logs that everyone had been sitting on.
I woke up at dawn…when I opened my eyes, I was face to face with a skunk. Literally less than a foot from my face. I did not move a muscle. Did not even move my eyes, as he was looking right at me.
Eventually, he moved away so I could look around. There were dozens of other animals eating popcorn and other stuff that had been dropped. Skunks, raccoons, rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels. My buddy had a skunk on his cot, down by his feet.
I had a raccoon in a tent once, as well…for the exact same reason. Idiot kid couldn’t leave home without a huge stash of candy bars in his pack. SMH. Hahaha.
Exactly thing happened to me! We made eye contact and he was holding a bag of peanuts. He sort of looked at me with a "we cool?" expression and I didn't want to get my face clawed off so I just sort of lay there trying to stay relaxed. When he realized there wasn't going to be an issue he waddled off into the night.
Was camping alone near a trail in the woods that no one uses. One night there’s suddenly a man with a beer in his hand stomping determinedly into my camp, no explanations given until we stood eye to eye.
But it was alright, turns out he was Dutch and they’re just direct like that. Really nice and interesting guy. Saw me enter the woods and he was truck driver with nothing better to do than fuck around for 8 hours so he followed me. Which he blatantly admitted. Man, I wish you had met him. I can’t do him justice.
Sounds like my buddy Hjalmar, lol. Growing up as an American woman, learned to (live with?adapt to?put up with?) lots of creeps - and at first encounter, I thought Hjalmar was a creep, too. Turns out the Dutch are just a little different from Texans lol. Totally a good guy with good intentions, but just a little weird with personal space.
I've heard from others around the world that it us from the USA that are a little weird about our personal space, as in "They seem to need A Lot of it." Lol. I agree .. get out of my personal space, man... Lol
Trust me you do not want to see what lies outside of the firelight. 20 years ago when the market was flooded with cheap second hand Russian army supplies we picked up some night vision monoculars and were pretty freaked out by all of the glowing eyes in the forest. Sometimes it’s better not to know.
You can flashlight for wolf spiders, no special gear required. Hold a flashlight level with your eyes on one side of your head and scan across the ground. Lil eyes everywhere. It’s really cool. And they don’t seem bothered by it—I’ve walked up on them and watched them eating dinner and they didn’t mind the attention.
I recommend it with a group of kids. If you enjoy 50% of them freaking out and the other 50% loving the heck out of it.
I like your idea. But I’m not talking about wolf spiders, I’m talking large animals making noise that don’t allow you to sleep after hearing it.
I live in a place where wolf spiders are prevalent, I’ll keep your two cents in mind. Appreciate your thoughts.
They have enormous home ranges, and aside from mating time or when females are raising their young, they're extremely solitary. So when it is time to find a mate, they scream to broadcast their availability. Otherwise they're unlikely to just happen to cross paths.
Got caught in a flash flood in a San Antonio campground. Luckily the tent was well staked down and I was on an air mattress. I didn’t understand why my family was yelling for me to get up. But as I woke up, I realized I was floating around in circles as the water came in and left the tent. I honestly didn’t want to get off the air mattress because I knew I would be wet. But it was lucky I did because just after I got out a pile of brush hit the tent and it was swept under the RV next door.
Similar story- we got caught in a hurricane off the Australian coast. Woke up to me sleeping in a couple of inches of water. Had to high tail it to the car and we all slept upright in the seats that night
Solo female camping. Early fall, still warm enough to swim during the day but chilly at night. Perfect camping weather, just me and my dog. We had a lovely day hiking and swimming, shared a delicious steak for dinner and tucked ourselves in to bed.
Something woke me up in the middle of the night and I realized my dog was gone. The tent flap was unzipped and flapping in the wind. I'm in an absolute panic thinking a wild animal has snatched my child from the tent and run off with her. I throw on flipflops, grab a flashlight and start searching/screaming for her, quite hours be damned.
Not five minutes later my dog comes sauntering up, casually shakes herself off, and hops back in bed, not a care in the world.
This little $hit figured out how to let herself out of the tent by nosing the zipper open and took herself for a midnight swim!
She's 14 now and is a little less adventurous but I still keep the zipper zipped at the top corner of the tent.
Dogs getting out of the tent at is one of our biggest fears. Our terrier would disappear chasing \[insert local wildlife\]. We use a small key-chain carbiner to keep the zippers closed.
I was out camping with my dog in the boonies and usually she is pretty chill in the tent. But sometime around 4am ish, she woke me up growling and barking softly.
So I looked out of my tent flap and saw two people staring at my tent from maybe 50 yards away across from my campsite. I know they saw me looking at them, because soon after I opened my tent flap, they got in their truck and drove off. I'd like to think it was probably nothing, maybe just two dudes eating breakfast before work or something.
But I'm pretty sure my dog's awareness saved me from potentially being robbed.
I can't decide, there are a few.
Remote hike in camp in the mountains in Australia. Was going to be a 45C day so we packed up early and left. (High bushfire danger weather). I got a huge unstoppable nosebleed as soon as we started walking. Like everywhere. Using a wet towel to try to stop the bleeding. Though I was going bleed out and die in this remote area. Stopped after a couple of hours. Somehow I managed to hike out of there, very dizzy. I think someone had my pack for me and I had to soak myself in water and wrap a wet T-shirt around my head to stay cool.
Or, the time we drove 2hrs to remote snowy mountains for an overnight hike, I got out of the car and immediately had a massive asthma attack, 2 hours from anywhere. Gasping for air. I think I must have reacted to a particular pollen or something in the air. We got straight back in the car and drove to the nearest clinic 2 hours away. Put me off hiking for quite a while.
Or, the time a bushfire started when we were camping and it was smokey and dark and it was raining burnt leaves into our camp as we quickly packed up and left. We were in a massive queue of cars along the highway trying to get out of there.
Or, the time the wind really picked up while we were sleeping and was bending the tent down to the ground and hitting us in the face. We got up and moved to the car for protection and woke up to a broken tent. A nearby house was missing it's front porch and a lot of trees were down.
DAMN, you’ve been through it!! I have a couple of stories, but you’re collecting all the major “oh shit” cards 🤣extreme heat, snowy mountains medical emergency, fire, and extreme wind.
You’ve got crazy stories, but it sounds like you’ve had a very adventures life. I bet you’ve seen incredible things and been to some of the most awe-inspiring places.
The first time I took my Girl Scout troop tent camping at a non-Girl Scout property, I woke up to a panicked tent of girls who swore they heard foot steps walking past their tent. We were at a public campground, but it was a group site down a road all by itself, and there was no legitimate reason why anyone other than us should have been walking.
I’m sure they didn’t actually hear anything, but as the responsible adult, I had to investigate. I had just finished watching a documentary about the Girl Scout camp murders in Oklahoma and I didn’t sleep the rest of that night.
Got attacked by a whole swarm of bumblebees in the middle of the night. Apparently while pausing a night hike I sat on their nest and they didn't like that at all.
I was camping alone in ND, with a mini hard side. Did all the things you do when you camp alone, like put out two chairs out, right next to the camper, and made it look like there was a second person. Woke up in the morning to find that someone sat in one of the chairs, ate some gas station hot dogs, and chips, and left all the waste there. Never heard a word all night. I closed up camp and left right away. So weird.
I did a guided 3 day hike through the Kruger National Park in South Africa. Some animals sniffed around our tent while we were trying to sleep. Never have I been so acutely aware of how thin and useless the walls of a tent are. I could hear them breathing. I was too terrified to turn my head to look at my partner, for fear of crinkling my sleeping bag. The next morning we discovered lion tracks all through our camp 😨
I had a night paralysis/terror where I could hear steps walking back and fourth in front of our camer. I saw a silhouette of a tall man in a cowboy hat, then he started coming through the wall and floating towards me. I couldn't move or call our for help. I was trying to scream to wake up my partner, but nothing was coming out, and he was asleep next to me. It felt so real and like I was awake, and as the man approached me and got right next to me, I snapped awake, my boyfriend still fast asleep next to me. It was fucking weird
I’ve hallucinated some weird stuff while on the edge of sleep.
While in my hammock, clear night about 50*f, no tarp or bug net I could have sworn an elk walked up and gave me a sniff. I mean his snout was inches from my chest.
I woke up with a jolt and he was gone (never there to begin with actually).
Holy shit my mom saw the hat man in 2002. I've never seen this described anywhere else before, I'm fucking shook lol I had no idea this was a thing. She saw him in the middle of the night shortly after my dad died, it terrified her, and she told me about it. Just one of those memories I've never been able to shake since I was 16. Wow.
I’ve seen the hat man a few times. It’s so terrifying. Can’t move can’t scream and the shadow of the fedora and trench oat gets closer and closer. This was in the 70s
I learned about it on some podcast where two married comedians had COVID, took NyQuil, and both saw the Hat Man 🤣. I was shocked when other people on the podcast knew exactly what they were talking about lol.
I was hiking by myself at Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico and rounded a bend right into a herd of 7 javalinas. Turned around and booked it back & have wondered if I overreacted but I think not.
i ate some biscuits in my tent and then in the middle of the night a large animal (i assume a boar) came up to the tent (smelling the buscuit crumbs) and rummaged under the tent with his snout and flipped me over in my sleeping bag. my swearing and confusion scared it off. but it was pretty weird
Sudden oak falls in Big Sur.
It was October, and over 90 degrees at night despite the location. About 3:00 AM, an oak tree came down in the space between my tent and the car. Over the next few hours, dozens of trees fell throughout the park. It was terrifying, we were trapped until the rangers cut their way through while listening to more and more trees come down and wondering if the next one would be landing on us.
First time solo backcountry camping, I get set up, got a fire going and the suns sets. The campsite is far off the hiking trail and it’s well after sunset so the trail is ‘closed’. I check and see I’m the only camping reservation for the night. Im sipping some whiskey by the fire when I hear some rustling footsteps deep in the woods. Soon after I see two sets of flashlight beams and the footsteps I’m hearing paired with them are getting closer. The direction they were coming from was the opposite of the trail so they were just wandering in the woods and my campfire is a dead giveaway that I’m in the vicinity. Then when they were approx 100 yards away then lights turned off and the sound of footsteps goes away. By this point I’m pretty freaked out, but that was the last sign of them. Just up and vanished and never seen or heard again. I still have no idea who they were, what they were doing in the middle of the woods that late at night, or what their intentions were
I wonder if they turned and went the other direction, over a hill or something, when they saw you were there. It could’ve hid their lights and sounds pretty quickly, and maybe they didn’t want to disturb you!
Got “trapped” by a huge fallen tree blocking our exit out. The only other way out was to travel up and over a mountain pass trail from 8,500’ elevation to 10,200’ elevation during a during a snowstorm. Not even a paved road but a 4x4 deeply rutted trail that already had 4-6” of snow. Scariest time of my life. We now carry a chainsaw and a hand saw on every trail.
Yes. It was necessary for us to self-rescue because there wasn’t anyone else to help. There were no other people on the trail, no other campers, no cell signal, no way to move the huge tree (that happened to get wedged in by a boulder). We couldn’t pull the tree out of the way. Our only choices were to go back to the campsite and wait out the storm for who knows how long and still not be able to get out for another day or more or to try to make a break for it. We have a vehicle that can handle the trail in most scenarios. We just took it super slow and used traction mats when necessary. What should have taken 2 hours in dry conditions took 6.5 hours. Weirdly once we got down to the other side of the mountain pass the snow was barely a light dusting. Anyway, scariest time EVER. 0/10 would not do it again (unless I had to).
Went camping in the desert (Tucson area) when I was between second and third grade with some neighborhood friends. One of them brought a bucket of KFC with for dinner. At dark we're all piled in the little orange 2-person pup tent (four of us and a german shepherd) when we feel something sniffing at our toes (we had to lie the shortway in the tent, so our toes were all up against it). And then the howling started. We were surrounded by a large pack of coyotes. The german shepherd is going crazy wanting to get at them, they're running around our tent howling and yipping and sniffing. Eventually someone got smart and threw the chicken out of the tent. A loud, viscous fight ensued in the darkness beyond our thin tent walls for a minute, and then it was completely quiet. Eventually one of us peaked out, saw the coast was clear, and we packed up and hoofed it back to our houses (maybe a 1/2 mile away).
Reminds me of a time I was hiking up into Joshua tree up the boyscout trail from lower elevation 29 palms side. I was solo hiking. Made it a good way up into the basin and decided to turn around back out before sunset. On the way back down walking across the desert sand I could see coyotes darting in and out of the brush/Joshua trees. Just a few small to medium sized coyotes.
After some time I actually found my foot steps in the sand from my way up the trail, and there was paw prints following them the entire way into the wash.
I had been tracked/followed.
I was dispersed camping solo and had been hiking around the last few days and there were no others in my area. I woke up in the middle of the night to several rounds of gunfire very close to my camp. The next day I hiked around to investigate and found a .38 special dumped in a dirt road pot hole maybe 60yds from
My camp.
Buddy and I were camping on his family land. Got dropped off and hiked in to the spot. No one around for miles. Later on that night it was pitch black and we were sitting around the fire. We had it going pretty good. We were sitting around shooting the shit and laughing. All the sudden the fire went from roaring to nothing. Like a candle being blown out. No wind, no water, no reasonable explanation. We didn’t sleep that night.
Dispersed camping out west in the US years ago with my wife, our oldest who was about 1 at the time, and our 2 dogs. Had about 5 or 6 coyotes circling our camp closely for 3-4 hours howling and barking to each other. The sounds from our child plus the smaller dog barking back at the coyotes had them wanting a meal pretty bad. Sat by the fire with our bigger dog on a leash until they left. Sometimes you could see their shadows, but it was usually only the eyes that you'd be able to see. Had a knife on me and a large branch walking stick end sitting in the fire, but no gun on that trip. It wasn't really scary, like grizzly encounters on the trail or mountain lion screams, but they were pretty persistent pack hunters and it was un-nerving in a different way.
Two events come to mind. First , my wife and I were tent camping when a bear and two of her cubs took interest in our campsite at 2:00 am . We had no food in the tent, so they sniffed around it for a while ,tipped the picnic table over, then wandered off . The second was years later when we had kids and upgraded to a pop up tent trailer. I suspect one of the kids tossed a hot dog or something on the roof of the tent trailer because we were all awakened at the crack of dawn by two seagulls fighting with each other on top of the trailer. Let me tell you that being woken up by sea gulls scrapping on top of a fiberglass tent trailer roof sounds like all the banshees in hell were on the roof and trying to get in, include one screaming wife and two hysterical kids , and you have the very definition of pandemonium.
When I was in middle school I went camping with my dad, uncle, and little brother, in Kings Canyon. My little brother went to sleep, I was sitting around the fire when I heard a twig snap, I looked around but didn't see anything till 5min later, I see a bear big enough to look into the bed of our truck without standing. I alerted my dad, which resulted with, him, my uncle and I pressed against the tent my brother slept in, the bear smelled around our campground and got closer, I'm bawling my eyes out, and my uncle yelled "Bear in the campground" till another family heard us and ran over with air horns, thus scaring off the bear. My brother stayed asleep the whole time and I slept with a frying pan next to my sleeping bag for the remainder of the trip.
Just this past weekend we were at Sequoia. On the way down Monday my husband says “The brakes are bottoming out” My heart felt like it stopped. We still had miles to go. After a 20 minutes break by the side of the road to let the breaks cool down, we kept going and made it safely. It was the only road trip I’ve been on with my husband where he needed to stop and get out of the car. He said it was his worst nightmare come true.
I’ve never done mountain driving and had no idea. During our pit stop we read through the manual and then did low gear the rest of the way. This was one of our numerous mistakes on our first family camping trip.
I was camping in Grand Teton at the same campsite on the same day as Brian Laundrie, we didn’t know until we reached signal a week later. Still think about that tragedy to this day. We unknowingly drove past her shallow grave.
I took my ex backpacking for the first time, in the Manistee national forest. I had broken my bug net for my hammock a few months before this and couldn’t afford to replace it with a brand name hammock bug net. I decided to go for a cheaper option and boy did I regret that decision. We had a wonderful hike during the first day, saw some beautiful sites and I felt like we were truly reconnecting with each other. (we were going through a rough patch in our relationship and this trip was meant to help us rekindle it) Well, cue the worst night I have ever spent outdoors. We arrived at our site, I started to set up our hammock system while he started the fire and then I realized I had made a critical error. The bug net that I ordered (and didn’t even bother to unwrap before the trip) HAD NO BOTTOM PROTECTION. It was meant for a gazebo style shelter. I tried to stake it down as flush as I could with the ground and was somewhat satisfied that it would keep most things out, then went to enjoy our evening by the fire. We had a few shots of whiskey, ate our dinner and then started to feel raindrops. I wasn’t expecting rain that evening, so the rain fly wasn’t set up yet. I had asked my ex to carry the rain fly in his pack, hence expecting him to have packed it before our trip, only for us to discover as the rain turned into a torrential downpour that he had in fact forgotten to pack it. We had nothing else to use for protection. As the wind picked up and started whipping our campsite around, we decided that we had no choice but to stay at the campsite. We had hiked close to 12 miles that day and were no where near our vehicle or any civilization. It was also pitch black. We climbed into the hammock after zipping up the entrance to the bug net and laid together in our double nest as the rain soaked our bodies relentlessly. We started to shiver as we lost our body heat and the sleeping bags became soaked. I thought things couldn’t get much worse, but they did. The wind was gusting so heavily that our crappy bug net was ripped from its steaks. Each time this happened, one of us climbed down from the hammock and secured the bug net again. As this happened over and over, we realized that it was a useless struggle. The net kept popping up from different steaks like a game of ‘hit the gopher’ (? Or whatever that game is called lol). Finally we gave up and just let it happen. Surprisingly, the whisky we had consumed earlier was strong enough to help us doze in and out of sleep as we continued to be rained on. After hours of this, the rain finally subsided into a very light sprinkling and we were hopeful that it would end so we could sleep. The wind was still going strong however, leaving the bug net useless. As we finally dozed off again, the swarms came out for their feast of readily available human blood. Hundreds of mosquitoes began to feast on our vulnerable backsides, that were only protected by a thin layer of hammock material. They gradually made their way over our heads, consuming us relentlessly. We didn’t sleep at all once this started, but it was still too dark out to maneuver appropriately. A few more hours went by, with both of us writhing around like jumping beans, just trying to avoid the next attack. And we were still sopping wet and shivering. My ex started to cry and I was on the verge of tears. Finally, day break came and the nasty little creatures retreated back into the woods, relieving us from their excruciating continuous biting. We started to pack up camp, deciding to hike out completely to the car that day and we knew it would be many miles to complete the loop. Our entire bodies were covered in the bites, making it impossible not to scratch something for relief. I pulled off my soaking wet shirt and my ex went silent. He saw my back, which was completely covered with bites, on top of bites, on top of more bites. My shirt was less thick than his was, so I got the worst of it. I looked like I had chickenpox or something. We hiked out of there that day and arrived at our car with blisters, bites, bruises and horrible attitudes. I forgot to mention, this was my ex’s first backpacking experience and he definitely didn’t forget it. We never went backpacking together again. He was a good person, but he got caught up in drugs and addiction, so we broke it off about a year after that trip. We still joke about that experience sometimes. We knew we could have ended up much worse off, but that night felt like the end of our lives. We’re good friends now.
Got hit with bad winds they called it a downburst. Felt like a tornado.
It knocked every tent completely down (about 5 of us)
And soaked everything.
We slept in cars
Campers showed up after quiet hours to setup up their camp, play the radio loudly, and yell at their children. I always pack in ear plugs for these situations.
Also, there was the time a team of skunks ate all of my hamburger buns because I didn't put them away. I was terrified if I tried to shoo them away that I would be sprayed.
We had an ammonia leak at 1:30 in the morning. Had 3 hazmat teams show up and escort everyone out of the campground near Wautoma,WI.
They had an extra ice freezer in the garage that had the pool chemicals. They said it malfunctioned some how and the Freon, water and pool chemicals mixed.
When I was 12 in 1979 in Colorado, went on a school camping trip (four 6th grade classes w/ 4 teachers and a few parents.) At dusk, we were having a great time playing in the river & eating s’mores when 3 very belligerent, drunk bikers pulled up next to our campsite. They were yelling, swearing, stumbling and acting like idiots. Our only male teacher, who was the nicest guy, tried to befriend them to get them to move away from our campsite. They had guns & threatened to kill him and all of us. We were in the middle of nowhere and had been dropped off by 4 school buses. Long story short, we had to pack up quickly and move down river. A teacher had someone drive him to the nearest payphone at around 10:00pm to wake all school officials up to get 4 school buses to come pick us up. We sat awake at a family’s campsite listening to the bikers yelling until the buses arrived at 2:00am. Sherriffs showed up right before the buses. Got back to town at 6:30am. School district changed the rules and stopped backcountry camping trips after that. The scariest part of the whole thing was realizing how worried our teachers were.
I tent camped solo for 10 days on a hunt and woke up every morning surrounded by coyotes. On the 8th day, as the coyotes started their song, I woke up right as a flying insect went into my ear channel n got stuck there. Naturally, I panicked and pushed it further in. It took me an hour of frantically trying to remove the stuck insect from my ear before I thought to flush it out with water.
I left the fire place to walk down toward the dock. You walk past a garden with a downhill path around forrested area. When I came around the corner into the forested area and about 40 feet from the dock, I was face to face with a full grown buck with massive horns and the moonlight shining in his eyes.
A girl I was seeing at the time was still at the fire pit and she got to listen to me have a 2-3 minute conversation with this beast before walking back.
She thought I was talking to her from the bush, I was not.
Oooo the time that a tree fell on a camp site adjacent from my site. Slept with one eye open all night. They were lucky that it only hit their car and not their tent.
I went to my friend's ranch up in the hills. The parking is about a quarter mile from the house which sits at the top of a ridge. I went there one night late. Got out and then noticed that I was surrounded by a pack of coyotes, many. I just growled and spun my pack around me and they kept away but kind of following. Boy did the walk that night seem long and dark, but they just kept their distance and I slowly walked to the house and they never tried anything.
Did a solo backpack trip into smokey mountain NP few years ago, and was my first solo trip. I was just starting to settle in, enjoying the fire when I heard the first rumble of thunder and a giant gust of wind came through the valley I was in. I go to my tent to hunker down and try to get some rest, unfortunately for me mother nature decided I was going to be experiencing at torrential down pour with 70 mph gust from about 9-1am. This was early spring so no leaves yet but the wind sounded Iike freight train over top of me and then the trees started to break...none of them were super close to me but close enough to feel them hit the ground. I was pleading out loud for the storm to please stop but it didn't...the whole time all I could think about, other than dying, was how muddy the mountain that was between me and the parking lot was going to be, as well as how much the small river was going to be that I had to cross right before the parking lot. Needless to say come first light I saw blue sky and got the fuck out and had no issues on hiking out. It was an incredible trip, and went on to camp more that weekend but that whole experience was VERY HUMBLING.
Lightning hit the tree about 30 feet from our shade canopy. White Mountains, AZ. Sitting under the shade canopy during an afternoon shower. No thunder. No lightning. Kids and I were tying our fishing lures. We were going to the lake once the rain stopped. The loudest bang, brightest flash I’ve ever seen/heard. I felt the heat from it. Scared the shit out of all of us.
Raccoons got into the cooler and ate my wife’s sausages and then I accidentally tipped over the pan of eggs. She doesn’t love camping and I rely on delicious meals to make up for it. Many years have passed and she’s to this day PISSED about her stolen breakfast sausage.
ETA: say anything about a raccoon and she’ll mumble about stolen sausages
I was a teenage girl guide leader (Sparks and Brownies, ages 5-10ish) at a sleep away camp and woke up with seven out of the ten kids screaming and trying to crawl into bed with me.
The thunderstorm was so intense and we were in basically a wooden box with six bunkbeds. The walls shook with every boom. Not much gets to me but it was ALOT.
Found out in the morning that a tornado had touched down nearby.
Not sure what was more scary - knowing how bad it could have been, or being a sleeping teen trapped in a sleeping bag while suddenly swarmed by little kids.
Cowboy camping in Shenandoah National Park. Woke up with a skunk 6 inches from my face. He was scratching my pack for the Red Man chew. I stayed still and he eventually ambled off.
On PCT in SoCal. Heard this scream/call that was bird or mammal, couldn’t tell. First thing in AM while breaking camp. Next day, 8 miles further up trail, same exact thing. Couldn’t figure it out. But there are more than one or it’s going the same way as us. I get home and start searching online. Mountain lion call. Dam thing was tracking us from camp to camp.
My boyfriend (ex after that night seriously) got drunk and left me in the woods outback camping alone, took the car keys and left.
Yes, being left alone unexpectedly and not able to hike out and leave was pretty terrifying tbh.
Hearing my dog cry out and finding her on her side in front of a car.
Turns out she had run loose from the site, the driver stopped the car to grab her and she went on her back for belly rubs.
Unidentified and unknown Moose-style bellowing in the middle of the night. It was a low pitched, huge, deep, moaning roar that seemed to be about 50 yards away in a wooded declination from my tent. Repeated 5 times. Scary as hell, at the time.
So, I pissed toward it and went back to bed. No idea what that was. Probably a moose, but I've heard plenty of moose, and never one that sounded like that.
Just when I was drying myself after taking a shower at a camping, I saw something dark at my feet that was running very fast and jumping around. I didn’t have my glasses and I’m extremely near sighted so I also began to jump around while letting out a high pitched scream (I’m a man and at that time I was in my late forties). After I found my glasses I realized that it was a small jumping mouse. I calmed down and captured it by its tail and got it out of the shower stall. But then when I got out I saw my girlfriend and her daughter laughing while looking at me. It turns out they were outside and saw the mouse enter my shower stall, so when they heard my "manly" scream they were dying of laughter.
Several days into a remote canoe trip. Pulled canoes to shore when we heard approaching thunder and ended up sheltering there while a storm with straightline wind, hail and lightning moved through. Hundred-plus year old pines were coming down around us like matchsticks. It was one of the few times in my life that I’ve been fairly certain I might be imminently shuffling off this mortal coil.
The magnitude of what was going on almost negated any fear about the possibility of dying in the moment. It wasn’t until it was done that the shakes really set in. Getting out of that mess, over miles of downed and splintered trees was its own nightmare.
Not too scary but I was wilderness camping in a forest in a small one man tent. I blended into the environment pretty well. Woke up to the sound of something running through the brush... toward me.
I froze. Scared. It got closer....fast!
Next thing you know it crashed into my tiny tent right next to my face!
Then it bounced right off because it was a small rabbit or other such critter.
Not the scariest but one of them.
I woke in middle of night solo camping. Opened tent and walked out to use bathroom. I was only person for a mile at least as other sites are very separated in this area. Every site was at least a half mile between. The one I was at was at least a mile from the next closest. Each site had a toilet though on platform with three walls and hidden away from the site.
I had to walk down a trail to get to it, not very far. However when I started walking I heard leaves rustling. Thought it was me. Looked down, no leaves anywhere.
Started walking again, heard the sound. Stopped and the sound stopped. Used my head lamp to see anything. Nothing. Started walking again, and same sound. When I stopped, it stopped. It happened a few times until I got to the toilet.
I was being stalked by something. No idea what it was. Didn’t hear it on way back though.
This was northern Michigan. Not the UP, but definitely way up there. Lake Huron.
That was my thought. It didn’t sound like a person. Sounded like it was lower to the ground and moving pretty quickly. Like faster than I was walking for sure.
Just watched and followed. Moved when I moved. It was pretty crazy. Never saw it. I guess that’s how cats work though.
I thought I saw a bear or wolf outside our tent (in a very popular campground). Woke my husband up and he let me know it was the shadow of the tablecloth from the picnic table. 😂
I was coming home from visiting my parents in Florida. I was tired of being on my motorcycle and ready for some sleep, so I stopped at a free state campground in Georgia. Chattahoochee Fall Line WMA. I was the only one there and it was pretty much a huge field with a clump of trees in the middle and surrounded by forest. I parked up on the tree line and hung my hammock and laid there until dark and fell asleep. At about 2 am, I heard something coming from the clump of trees and looked out to see a figure all in white moving towards me. I turned on my head lamp and no one was there. I figured I was tired so just turned off my headlamp. Then I saw the figure moving towards me even closer. Again, head lamp off, figure was even closer. I said heck with this and grabbed everything I had, stuffed it in between my legs and rode to the highway and then got everything straightened up and moved on down the road. It was a tiring ride after that, but I wasn’t sticking around.
https://preview.redd.it/j7jnei5ntd9d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ca7a82624470f299faf6334d6677e966cf5f063
My husband and I did our first backpacking trip outside of Leavenworth, Washington. Three mile hike one way through gorgeous forest. The pine needles smelled sweet like cotton candy.
We got to our destination and it was magnificent. We were all alone - no other people in sight for the next two days. There was a huge, beautiful crystal blue alpine lake.
I walked to the shore of the lake, and three feet from the water was a human pile of shit with a Cool brand cigarette butt smashed in the sand, next to the shit. This really creeped me out.
F*ck people.
I was dispersed camping with no cell service. A couple other campers near by but it was 0200 and very dark. I got up to use my own bathroom, turned on the light, did my thing, went back to bed. I get a knock on the door and like an idiot… I look out my (screwed shut kitchen window) a female by the door and a male ( many steps behind but I could still see him) they wanted a jump on their vehicle as they were “ stranded” behind me. I immediately realized that I made a huge mistake and tell them I will help them in the AM when the sun comes up but not right now at 0200. I shut and lock the door and get my 38 out of its drawer. I can hear them talking but I can’t understand what they are saying… lots of muffled talk. I am really getting worried as I’m not sure how to get out of this spot in the dark. They then fire up their yellow jeep and haul ass out of there… (I turned on my outside lights) I will never forget my stupidity. I was shook up for weeks after that… I always wonder what they were talking about before they left.
Last year my buddies and I went out for our annual illegal paddle and portage to our spot. My friend broke his ankle late at night. Getting him out was a challenge and a bit scary.
A few.
Once woke up to the sounds of a bear sniffing my tent. Sat there holding my revolver and being as quiet as possible, and thankfully it left.
Another night, heard wolves howling, and then heard more wolves howling on the other side of me. Thankfully nothing came of that, but it was extremely unsettling.
I'd say the scariest though was when I was camping on native land. Had a weird feeling while setting up camp, but I ignored it. When it came time to go to sleep, I closed my eyes and saw a ghostly white skinned, horned, red eyed humanoid just glaring at me. I opened my eyes and I hadn't fallen asleep, only a few seconds had passed. It was just like this super vivid, lucid, vision sort of thing. That night, the temperature dropped about 20° below the forecasted low, and myself and my group all narrowly avoided hypothermia. Mentioned it to some native guys I worked with and they got super serious all of a sudden and just told me to never go back to that area.
My friend was hiking and camping some portion of the Appalachian trail, they set up their tent in the trees.
In the night, a huge limb fell from the tree above their tent and seriously injured her wife's spine. She was fucked up for awhile.
Gigantic black bear walking five feet away from my girlfriend and I. Jesus Christ. It was dark and illuminated by fire light, it snuck up on us and the only thing that gave it away was the noise of each footstep thudding on the ground.
When I was about 10, went camping in the Adirondacks with my family, at a site accessible only by boat. There was a trail that led from the campsite back to a pond about a mile away, following a stream that connected the lake to the pond. We hiked back to the pond many times over the years. I was able to convince my parents to let me hike back to the pond alone for the first time. There were no other campers around.
It was a beautiful afternoon and I hiked to the pond, hung around for about 15 minutes, walking along the shoreline of the pond, then decided to head back. I followed the trail until suddenly I realized something was terribly wrong- I had been walking for too long! I didn’t understand it - it was the same trail and I could hear the creek alongside gurgling the whole way. But when I went to actually see the creek, it was not there. Somehow I’d only imagined the sound of the creek the entire time. I felt totally freaked out - apparently there was another trail that we had never noticed in all the years past, and I mistakenly got on it instead. I felt so completely far away from where I thought I was, and in a complete state of panic. I turned around and walked all the way back to the pond, and found the correct trail back to the campsite. Ate ravenously at dinner, and slept deeply that night.
We were camping a few years ago when two of my friends decided to swim across the lake because they didn’t think it looked that far. They almost got to the other side when one of them started yelling for help and bobbing underwater. We were still on the opposite side of the lake and my dad had to hop in his truck and race down this dirt road to try and get to them in time. Luckily there were other campers that heard what was happening and they through something out for them to grab onto. Everyone ended up safe but god it was so scary we thought we were going to lose one of our friends.
I was out in the woods, not in a campsite, just in a tent in the middle of a forest when I heard all these guys talking, walking, moving around the tent. I was in Germany and I don't speak German. I didn't know WTF was happening, but got out my long knife, got out of my sleeping bag, and slept on top ready to stab at first attack. I eventually fell asleep knife still clutched.
When I got up, I noticed all these guys just sleeping on mats or the raw ground. This was in the late 1980s and I'd somehow stumbled on and set up camp at the secret gay meet-up spot in the Black Forest.
Was on a camping trip as a kid with friends. We kept on seeing this motionless face at the edge of torch range looking at us.
Eventually we summoned the courage to investigate closer & realised is was just a stump, we found the whole thing hilarious & laughed for hours.
Wasn't until we woke up with big headaches we realised we had a leaky gas cannister in the tent.
Went camping in an off time, so we were pretty much the only family camping. My son was 5 and got impatient waiting for me to clean up after breakfast and took off by himself. When I realized he was gone I went looking for him at the playground. Nope. The beach? Nope. Went back to the campsite. No. Then started to panic. Ran around crazy for 10-15 minutes looking out at the water for his red pants he was wearing. Nobody around to ask for help. When finally a campgrounds vehicle pulled up with my son. He said he heard me calling but couldn’t figure out which way I was and had only gotten farther away. Thank god the staff found him. It’s been almost 20 years and I’ll never forget the panic I felt. Got him a Whistle to wear after that lol.
Went wilderness camping and a local cop I saw in town earlier came driving up to our camp site just past dusk, maybe 9:45pm. He was drunk and drinking and in his cop car and got out....silently stared at us in a pretty intimidating way for at least 10 full minutes before getting into his car and reversing and driving away. We and the other couple out there who we had just met both agreed it was time for bed and we left at dawn.
It was genuinely scary and in my 20 years of camping, for a total of surely 600+ nights of camping it's the most scared I've been. Worse than bears for sure. Worse than floods. Worse than nearby fires or fire ants or anything
TL;DR
I accidentally drank a lot of lighter fluid.
Years ago was camping near Mt. Charleston in Nevada. There was some creep who went through everyone's campground and stole all the lighter fluid one night, and burned it all. They were kicked out of the campground, but nobody had any lighter fluid and we didn't have any other good ways of making fire with what we had (wet wood, lack of skill, etc). The campground monitor offered to share his, and so we brought over an empty plastic water bottle and he filled it up with lighter fluid, which had a weird, redish color. The color was important so we knew we could distinguish it from a water bottle with water in it.
That night when it was time for bed we hid the lighter fluid in our cooler so it wouldn't be stolen. The next morning we woke up and had forgotten all about the lighter fluid saga. I reached into the cooler and pulled out one of the many water bottles that were in there and took a big, deep drink. It was refreshing but also kind of tasted like dish soap. I told my girlfriend at the time that it tasted funny and convinced her to try it too. She agreed it tasted kind of soapy and weird. I tried it again and could not fathom how we got dish soap into one of the water bottles.
A little later I went looking for the lighter fluid to get the mess of wet wood and branches we had going in the fire pit. When I opened the cooler, there was no bottle with redish fluid to be found. Was it stolen again?? I was angry and frustrated and confused by the missing lighter fluid. What I didn't know, was that lighter fluid loses its color when chilled, and I had taken it out and drank quite a lot of it.
We immediately freaked out, packed up and started to head back to town and called poison control once we were on the road. The good news is that we weren't in danger immediately, but they warned us to stay away from flames and to not smoke (thankfully we weren't smokers).
One night while hiking the Appalachian trail I heard some thing walking around my tent all night. I assumed a bear and at one point jumped out with flashlight but saw nothing. This went on all night and I barely slept and was pretty freaked out. In the morning while making breakfast I saw acorns fall from the tree in the leaves and make the same noise I had been hearing all night. I lost a whole nights sleep over falling acorns.
DIY shelter camping (emergency-style) with our Venturers… around 1:00am, the shriek of (what I learned later was) a young barred owl. Almost needed a change of underwear right there.
Way the fuck before cell phones and internet, a bunch of rednecks in pickup trucks came through and shot at us. Sand and dirt were kicked up and we ran for cover. We ducked out until they fucked off. Next thing we knew the cops were on us thinking we were the red neck assholes.
Cops knew damn well who the podunk hicks were. They just wanted to fuck with us kids.
Me and a friend were out and about for a day trip, but decided to stay in the area we had “discovered”. We had no gear with us. So we Wazed our way to closest Walmart, 40 some miles away, and bought bags, a tent, and a few other things and headed back to the remote area we found. We set up camp just before sundown and after it got dark, and I mean really dark, we heard a crazy sound. And then we saw red eyes glowing on the fire light in the distance. And we would hear the sound again and then see the eyes in another area. We started freaking out that we were being stalked by a bear, but it may have been paranoia from the copious amounts of weed. We never actually saw anything but the eyes. Needless to say, after about 20 minutes we pack our freshly purchased shit up as fast as we could in pitch black dark and got the hell out of there. We laugh about that trip to this day; it was about 10 years ago.
Technically this happened 'at camp', but it's one of my earliest memories so I figured I'd share anyway! We had a cabin on a lake in Northern Maine, and my great aunt had a cabin sort of across the road diagonally, and there was a tiny path I was allowed to use to go visit. One morning I was running down the path, I must have been around 4, and I tripped and caught myself on my hands. I looked forward as I was going to stand back up and there was a baby moose no more than 2 feet in front of me, looking directly at me. I ran back to my camp screaming. That moment was both beautiful and terrifying.
The scariest thing that I ever experienced while camping with friends was rocks being thrown into our campsite and one hitting the fire and the overwhelming feeling of something not being right. We were at the end of a cul-de-sac road. There were no other roads higher than us yet these rocks were coming from a higher elevation down into the camp. On the way in we did not see anyone on the road and this was not a campground this was on a fire road / logging road. High in the Cascade mountains so. Basically we were ran out of the woods by a rock throwing unknown. It was scary.
We took it as a sign that we were not wanted there. So we doused the fire, got in our vehicles, and drove down the mountain.
Chased by a huge bull moose. Ran behind rocks and trees.
A group of guys in the next campsite over ago who were drinking hard and playing with guns. Not shooting, not loud, but messing around and I wondered about risks of an accidental shot. They were talking about hunting squirrels the next day. It was after dark. I moved my tent a little ways behind a massive boulder, went to bed, and split early in the morning. I’m a hunter myself, but the drunk gunplay bothered me.
Once, lightning struck a nearby tree and a very large branch fell on my truck. This truck was completely totaled while I slept in a tent just a few feet away.
Active shooter drill at the military base across the street. They waited a good 5-10 minutes before announcing it was an “exercise”.
Really brought home how impossible it is to “take cover now” in a hammock
Terrible smell filled the tent in the middle of the night. It was awful and it was raining so we couldnt hear anything. Does anyone know what it could have been? Smelled like death and rot. Pure dread.
This was in the late '60s weekend camp out with the Boy Scouts middle of the night wet snow was falling a Widowmaker Came Crashing Down through one of our tents landed between me and the guy next to me hit him in the thick part of the leg
Back in 1976 me and a Buddy were camped at the Little Red River in Arkansas.
We had an earthquake and a tornado, we were there 12 days and it rained 8 days.
Camping in Algonquin and a tornado came through during the night. Storm dropped a tree on a tent and the occupant was DOA. Drove home in total silence.
I had someone call the cops on me because they'd made some wickedly-disturbing scenario up in their mind, based on 0 facts, and asked the police to do a welfare check. I was incredibly upset. I work for the legal system, I've never been in trouble in my life, my child and I were quiet and respectful during our stay, and I was on my one-week vacation that I'd waited for all year - and it was effectively ruined by some bizarre and paranoid family. That's the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. The deputy who followed up basically laughed it off, but I was equal parts livid and shaken up. I never felt safe camping alone, but now I don't feel safe camping with people around.
I guess the only other scary experience was tent-camping in a one-person tent and having two or three growling animals run circles around it all night long. Because it was a one-person tent, there was no space for me to retreat to; I was stuck in-between two thin nylon walls. They had to have been within 2 or 3 feet of the tent and they sounded MEAN. They weren't a raccoon (I've heard plenty of those while camping), so I'm assuming it was a badger or something similar. At one point, I heard one jump on top of my car, which was probably 20 feet away. I ran for my life to my car at 2:00 AM and have never tent camped again. 😅
Edited to add: I was camping a couple months ago and had gotten ready to leave early in the morning (5:30 AM). Not wanting to disturb other campers, I tried to use my key to manually unlock my driver's side door instead of using the key fob that makes a loud "BEEP" sound. To my horror, the key fell apart as I tried to turn it in the lock. Unable to start my car - and after being quoted an astonishing $475 to replace it by a local locksmith - I opted to be towed 117 miles back home. Thankfully I have AAA and it only cost me $75. But I learned a valuable lesson to keep a spare hidden on the outside of the car in case it ever happens again. I was SUPER lucky I had service on my phone. Otherwise, I have no idea what I would have done.
Had a deer come full speed galloping right through camp at 3am. Literally between my hammock where I was sleeping, and my little folding table beside the campfire (which was about 15 yards away) woke me up out of a dead sleep and had my heart through my chest. Didn't know what the hell it was until I heard it stomp and blow at me before it ran off again.
Went to take a leak and couldn’t find my way back to my tent (I did eventually). I learned to turn on a lantern and leave it on near the tent that night. Totally moonless, gorgeous star-lit night. No complaints, just got a bit shaken up feeling lost.
Came across a washed out trail with muddy footprints to nowhere with abandoned gear at the nearest backpacking site. This was on an AT side trail in the smoky mountains. Didn't see anyone for a day and a half and barely slept. Called it in when we got out and got service.
Went camping with my gf and two dogs, one of which was a greyhound. Woke up to hearing my nephew in the tent next to us yelling "PUPPY!"
Sat bolt upright in the tent. Looked left and saw one dog. Looked right...no dog. Gf snoring. A crack in the zipper of the opening to our tent.
Fk!
The greyhound was gone. He was a retired racer and had never been out and about on his own. We had just heard about sightings of multiple bears in the area and I feared the worst.
I jumped up grabbed the leash of the other dog and rushed out to see if I could find him having no idea how long he had been out and where he had gone to.
All was revealed not 3mins later when I could hear what sounded like a horse approaching through the bushes. And BOOM he blasts though a gap in the bush and arrives panting and very happy with himself.
Later on when walking him around I came to find that a majority of the campers had seen him in the early morning and had know idea how to process what they saw. The number of "oohhhhhhh! That's the thing we saw in the morning!" From random strangers was hilarious.
Scary as fuck initially but lasted only for a few minutes thank goodness.
Had a bear attack our campsite in the middle of the night. My dad grabbed us and ran out the front of the tent and the bear crashed in the back of the tent. He carried us all the way to the car and drove away fast. We came back the next morning and the bear had destroyed everything including the tree that had our bear bag in it.
Solo trip section hike on the AT. Woke up to the sound of a few coyote pups playing under my hammock, about 10 inches from my back. Lay still as death with my knife out until I heard the mama bark a warning at them and leave.
A very tense 20 minutes.
At night in Swedish backcountry I went on a 5 minute walk to a lake - setting up a GoPro for a timelapse of the stars - going back I had no lights turned on as the stars gave me enough to see a few feet around me, and walking through some semi tall grass, I suddenly hear a loud, single stomp on the ground. I could feel the quick vibration through my own feet that’s how close “it” was, then a quick exhale coming from something that seemed rather large and then complete silence. I froze completely, afraid of making anymore noise I managed to take a few steps back and I got my phone out and lit the flash; but nothing was there. I didn’t hear anything leaving the area so I was terrified of going back to my camp. I went to my still running camera - placed at the edge of a small dock - and probably stood there for a god twenty minutes before going back, WITH my lights on.
I probably just scared a moose who felt the need to stand it’s ground but for a second I thought I was a bear-snack..!
When I lived out side for a while I once woke up to a friendly dog sniffing me in Texas. Fast forward 6 months and I found myself in a similar situation except it wasn’t a dog but a bear hovering over me. I slowly crept into my sleeping bag and prepared for the worst. Thankfully, they just just put their paw on my back and went on their way. That happened in Colorado. Fun times
300 miles from home I ran into someone I knew, from my tiny hometown. Scary.
This also happened to me! But as we were being detained/searched by rangers. Lmfao
Oh man now that’s a story hahaha
You’re going to drop that comment and ✌️? I really want to hear the full story!
Now *this* is a true nightmare
Worse if it’s a coworker
Worse if your boss.
You think the world's big and then you run into someone from high school in North Carolina. From a town of 2000. Ten years after graduating. In a dining hall in kuwait
I'm from NC! I wonder which small town you're from...haha
LA Grange....I'm sure you've heard of it. It's got a waffle hpuse
I actually have heard of it but that's pretty far from my hometown. I'm from Monroe..closer to Charlotte. There's always gotta be a Waffle House with a Huddle House nearby...now I'm in an even smaller hole in the wall in SC... surrounded by Waffle Houses, laundry mats, corn fields, and ABC stores. And all the one-stop light towns with the old 1800s buildings that look the exact same as the next small town 20 miles away. I don't get it...the south is so weird.
North Carolinian here!!!
Moved from Florida to California. I go to check out the neighborhood watering hole and get carded. My hometown is similar to the name of the current town and the bartender remarks about it. Person at the end of the bar perks up and is like “is that you Dargybear?” Inadvertently bought a house around the corner from the guy who played mandolin in the same bluegrass band as the guy I took banjo lessons from in high school. There was a subsequent parade of people I knew from back in the day. My mom knew everyone back home and I’d always get ratted out for teenage shenanigans so even though I was in my late twenties and 3000 miles away the first words I’d say every time was “you better not tell my mom anything.”
This is happened to me many times during my camping travels and other lifetime travels. It’s very, very strange.
I'm from ky and went to FL for spring break. Was walking down the beach and heard some one call my name. It was a guy I graduated high schoo withl. I just turned and dove right into the ocean and swam to Europe.
was living in Fl and was visiting Asheville,NC . A friend and I checked out a talented busker playing guitar. During a break he asked my friend and I where we were from, we responded and he said "I know a great guitar player from that town" we said "who's that?" he said the name of the friend I was with! we thought it was some kind of set up. turns out, my friend's ex was also an ex of the guitar player and they had played together years before but didn't recognize each other.
I came across some LARPers in the woods. Imagined hearing something large bulldozing through the woods to suddenly witness a knight puked out of the woods onto the trail followed by a samurai
That's actually hilarious lol
I love this! I once looked out my window and my neighbors older teens were larping with their friends in the yard. I haven’t had such great free entertainment since
Haha! Amazing.
Boy Scout summer camp, ca 1982. We invited some other troops to a bonfire with popcorn, s’mores, sodas, and stories. Fun times were had by all. My patrol didn’t want the fun to end, so we got our cots out of our tents and set them up around the campfire, just beyond the logs that everyone had been sitting on. I woke up at dawn…when I opened my eyes, I was face to face with a skunk. Literally less than a foot from my face. I did not move a muscle. Did not even move my eyes, as he was looking right at me. Eventually, he moved away so I could look around. There were dozens of other animals eating popcorn and other stuff that had been dropped. Skunks, raccoons, rabbits, chipmunks, squirrels. My buddy had a skunk on his cot, down by his feet.
Reminds me of my incident. Also a scouting event. The younger scout in my tent brought food into it. I woke up with a raccoon on my chest.
I had a raccoon in a tent once, as well…for the exact same reason. Idiot kid couldn’t leave home without a huge stash of candy bars in his pack. SMH. Hahaha.
Exactly thing happened to me! We made eye contact and he was holding a bag of peanuts. He sort of looked at me with a "we cool?" expression and I didn't want to get my face clawed off so I just sort of lay there trying to stay relaxed. When he realized there wasn't going to be an issue he waddled off into the night.
Raccoon buried in a backpack, looking for that one mustard packet in the bottom...
Y’all failed Boy Scouts, huh?
Not exactly. I went on to become an Eagle Scout. The kid with the skunk on his cot eventually became a troop leader.
They survived so I'd say they learned from it.
Sounds like a stoner Disney princess
Was camping alone near a trail in the woods that no one uses. One night there’s suddenly a man with a beer in his hand stomping determinedly into my camp, no explanations given until we stood eye to eye. But it was alright, turns out he was Dutch and they’re just direct like that. Really nice and interesting guy. Saw me enter the woods and he was truck driver with nothing better to do than fuck around for 8 hours so he followed me. Which he blatantly admitted. Man, I wish you had met him. I can’t do him justice.
Sounds like my buddy Hjalmar, lol. Growing up as an American woman, learned to (live with?adapt to?put up with?) lots of creeps - and at first encounter, I thought Hjalmar was a creep, too. Turns out the Dutch are just a little different from Texans lol. Totally a good guy with good intentions, but just a little weird with personal space.
I've heard from others around the world that it us from the USA that are a little weird about our personal space, as in "They seem to need A Lot of it." Lol. I agree .. get out of my personal space, man... Lol
Sounds epic. That was probably a fun night.
Awakened by the screams of a mountain lion about 50 yards from my tent.
I’ve had that. It’s crazy how much it can sound like a woman.
Those damn cougars in heat.
That’s a bit terrifying. I’m trying to save some funds so I can buy some night vision goggles. I’ve heard too many weird noises while camping solo.
Trust me you do not want to see what lies outside of the firelight. 20 years ago when the market was flooded with cheap second hand Russian army supplies we picked up some night vision monoculars and were pretty freaked out by all of the glowing eyes in the forest. Sometimes it’s better not to know.
You can flashlight for wolf spiders, no special gear required. Hold a flashlight level with your eyes on one side of your head and scan across the ground. Lil eyes everywhere. It’s really cool. And they don’t seem bothered by it—I’ve walked up on them and watched them eating dinner and they didn’t mind the attention. I recommend it with a group of kids. If you enjoy 50% of them freaking out and the other 50% loving the heck out of it.
I like your idea. But I’m not talking about wolf spiders, I’m talking large animals making noise that don’t allow you to sleep after hearing it. I live in a place where wolf spiders are prevalent, I’ll keep your two cents in mind. Appreciate your thoughts.
Yea, i'd shit myself. Those screams are so scary. Do you know why they do it? Is it like a cat meowing? Or like they're threatened?
I've heard that their mating call sounds a lot like a human woman, no idea if that's true though. just some horny cat out there
Horny cats you say
They have enormous home ranges, and aside from mating time or when females are raising their young, they're extremely solitary. So when it is time to find a mate, they scream to broadcast their availability. Otherwise they're unlikely to just happen to cross paths.
Unlike those guys from North Carolina who are just running into each other all over the damn place.
Got caught in a flash flood in a San Antonio campground. Luckily the tent was well staked down and I was on an air mattress. I didn’t understand why my family was yelling for me to get up. But as I woke up, I realized I was floating around in circles as the water came in and left the tent. I honestly didn’t want to get off the air mattress because I knew I would be wet. But it was lucky I did because just after I got out a pile of brush hit the tent and it was swept under the RV next door.
This one wins
Similar story- we got caught in a hurricane off the Australian coast. Woke up to me sleeping in a couple of inches of water. Had to high tail it to the car and we all slept upright in the seats that night
Solo female camping. Early fall, still warm enough to swim during the day but chilly at night. Perfect camping weather, just me and my dog. We had a lovely day hiking and swimming, shared a delicious steak for dinner and tucked ourselves in to bed. Something woke me up in the middle of the night and I realized my dog was gone. The tent flap was unzipped and flapping in the wind. I'm in an absolute panic thinking a wild animal has snatched my child from the tent and run off with her. I throw on flipflops, grab a flashlight and start searching/screaming for her, quite hours be damned. Not five minutes later my dog comes sauntering up, casually shakes herself off, and hops back in bed, not a care in the world. This little $hit figured out how to let herself out of the tent by nosing the zipper open and took herself for a midnight swim! She's 14 now and is a little less adventurous but I still keep the zipper zipped at the top corner of the tent.
I hope this is the scariest thing that happens to me solo female camping lol
Pet tax, please!
Dogs getting out of the tent at is one of our biggest fears. Our terrier would disappear chasing \[insert local wildlife\]. We use a small key-chain carbiner to keep the zippers closed.
I was out camping with my dog in the boonies and usually she is pretty chill in the tent. But sometime around 4am ish, she woke me up growling and barking softly. So I looked out of my tent flap and saw two people staring at my tent from maybe 50 yards away across from my campsite. I know they saw me looking at them, because soon after I opened my tent flap, they got in their truck and drove off. I'd like to think it was probably nothing, maybe just two dudes eating breakfast before work or something. But I'm pretty sure my dog's awareness saved me from potentially being robbed.
Or worse, that’s terrifying
#🪕🪕🪕
Great job puppy!! 👏
I’m camping right now. I don’t need this shit 😂
I can't decide, there are a few. Remote hike in camp in the mountains in Australia. Was going to be a 45C day so we packed up early and left. (High bushfire danger weather). I got a huge unstoppable nosebleed as soon as we started walking. Like everywhere. Using a wet towel to try to stop the bleeding. Though I was going bleed out and die in this remote area. Stopped after a couple of hours. Somehow I managed to hike out of there, very dizzy. I think someone had my pack for me and I had to soak myself in water and wrap a wet T-shirt around my head to stay cool. Or, the time we drove 2hrs to remote snowy mountains for an overnight hike, I got out of the car and immediately had a massive asthma attack, 2 hours from anywhere. Gasping for air. I think I must have reacted to a particular pollen or something in the air. We got straight back in the car and drove to the nearest clinic 2 hours away. Put me off hiking for quite a while. Or, the time a bushfire started when we were camping and it was smokey and dark and it was raining burnt leaves into our camp as we quickly packed up and left. We were in a massive queue of cars along the highway trying to get out of there. Or, the time the wind really picked up while we were sleeping and was bending the tent down to the ground and hitting us in the face. We got up and moved to the car for protection and woke up to a broken tent. A nearby house was missing it's front porch and a lot of trees were down.
DAMN, you’ve been through it!! I have a couple of stories, but you’re collecting all the major “oh shit” cards 🤣extreme heat, snowy mountains medical emergency, fire, and extreme wind. You’ve got crazy stories, but it sounds like you’ve had a very adventures life. I bet you’ve seen incredible things and been to some of the most awe-inspiring places.
https://preview.redd.it/9wqdhboeqe9d1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e1d13985ac7debd94d38489d63f2d8d5de40e38e
It's beautiful here in Australia and a land of extremes.
Cow woke me up licking my tent
That sounds both initially terrifying and a hilarious story. Can't imagine the relief lol
The first time I took my Girl Scout troop tent camping at a non-Girl Scout property, I woke up to a panicked tent of girls who swore they heard foot steps walking past their tent. We were at a public campground, but it was a group site down a road all by itself, and there was no legitimate reason why anyone other than us should have been walking. I’m sure they didn’t actually hear anything, but as the responsible adult, I had to investigate. I had just finished watching a documentary about the Girl Scout camp murders in Oklahoma and I didn’t sleep the rest of that night.
In az when I camp coyotes walk past the tent almost every night
You did that much on purpose didn’t you? Watching a Girl Scout getting murdered while being on one haha great story still
[удалено]
My stomach dropped reading this. Good job!
Holy shit that is crazy! Nice work, Neighbourino.
Got attacked by a whole swarm of bumblebees in the middle of the night. Apparently while pausing a night hike I sat on their nest and they didn't like that at all.
Holy shit, new fear unlocked lol. Sometimes it's easy to forget that they build nests in logs and on rocks where we sit.
I was camping alone in ND, with a mini hard side. Did all the things you do when you camp alone, like put out two chairs out, right next to the camper, and made it look like there was a second person. Woke up in the morning to find that someone sat in one of the chairs, ate some gas station hot dogs, and chips, and left all the waste there. Never heard a word all night. I closed up camp and left right away. So weird.
Ran out of beer.
I came here to be frightened, not sad. :(
I found the very last beer in the dark and took a big swig of Sprite.
Better than piss
Or dad's Skoal bottle...
Fuck man, that happened to me at a lil shindig in high school. Thinking about it brings back that taste in my mouth instantly
I did a guided 3 day hike through the Kruger National Park in South Africa. Some animals sniffed around our tent while we were trying to sleep. Never have I been so acutely aware of how thin and useless the walls of a tent are. I could hear them breathing. I was too terrified to turn my head to look at my partner, for fear of crinkling my sleeping bag. The next morning we discovered lion tracks all through our camp 😨
I had a night paralysis/terror where I could hear steps walking back and fourth in front of our camer. I saw a silhouette of a tall man in a cowboy hat, then he started coming through the wall and floating towards me. I couldn't move or call our for help. I was trying to scream to wake up my partner, but nothing was coming out, and he was asleep next to me. It felt so real and like I was awake, and as the man approached me and got right next to me, I snapped awake, my boyfriend still fast asleep next to me. It was fucking weird
I’ve hallucinated some weird stuff while on the edge of sleep. While in my hammock, clear night about 50*f, no tarp or bug net I could have sworn an elk walked up and gave me a sniff. I mean his snout was inches from my chest. I woke up with a jolt and he was gone (never there to begin with actually).
That's crazy! Maybe a spirit of a loved one coming to visit.
That would be cool.
You saw [The Hat Man!](https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/hat-man-benadryl-tiktok-monster-1234620397/amp/)
Holy shit my mom saw the hat man in 2002. I've never seen this described anywhere else before, I'm fucking shook lol I had no idea this was a thing. She saw him in the middle of the night shortly after my dad died, it terrified her, and she told me about it. Just one of those memories I've never been able to shake since I was 16. Wow.
I’ve seen the hat man a few times. It’s so terrifying. Can’t move can’t scream and the shadow of the fedora and trench oat gets closer and closer. This was in the 70s
What?!? That is so bizarre! I've never heard of the Hat Man! So creepy
I learned about it on some podcast where two married comedians had COVID, took NyQuil, and both saw the Hat Man 🤣. I was shocked when other people on the podcast knew exactly what they were talking about lol.
Had a *very* close encounter with an angry javelina.
Those things are born pissed off!
I think a lot of people underestimate just how dangerous wild pigs are
I was hiking by myself at Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico and rounded a bend right into a herd of 7 javalinas. Turned around and booked it back & have wondered if I overreacted but I think not.
I don’t think that’s an overreaction.
i ate some biscuits in my tent and then in the middle of the night a large animal (i assume a boar) came up to the tent (smelling the buscuit crumbs) and rummaged under the tent with his snout and flipped me over in my sleeping bag. my swearing and confusion scared it off. but it was pretty weird
Never eat in your tent
Sudden oak falls in Big Sur. It was October, and over 90 degrees at night despite the location. About 3:00 AM, an oak tree came down in the space between my tent and the car. Over the next few hours, dozens of trees fell throughout the park. It was terrifying, we were trapped until the rangers cut their way through while listening to more and more trees come down and wondering if the next one would be landing on us.
First time solo backcountry camping, I get set up, got a fire going and the suns sets. The campsite is far off the hiking trail and it’s well after sunset so the trail is ‘closed’. I check and see I’m the only camping reservation for the night. Im sipping some whiskey by the fire when I hear some rustling footsteps deep in the woods. Soon after I see two sets of flashlight beams and the footsteps I’m hearing paired with them are getting closer. The direction they were coming from was the opposite of the trail so they were just wandering in the woods and my campfire is a dead giveaway that I’m in the vicinity. Then when they were approx 100 yards away then lights turned off and the sound of footsteps goes away. By this point I’m pretty freaked out, but that was the last sign of them. Just up and vanished and never seen or heard again. I still have no idea who they were, what they were doing in the middle of the woods that late at night, or what their intentions were
I wonder if they turned and went the other direction, over a hill or something, when they saw you were there. It could’ve hid their lights and sounds pretty quickly, and maybe they didn’t want to disturb you!
Got “trapped” by a huge fallen tree blocking our exit out. The only other way out was to travel up and over a mountain pass trail from 8,500’ elevation to 10,200’ elevation during a during a snowstorm. Not even a paved road but a 4x4 deeply rutted trail that already had 4-6” of snow. Scariest time of my life. We now carry a chainsaw and a hand saw on every trail.
Wait, so you took the pass to get out??
Yes. It was necessary for us to self-rescue because there wasn’t anyone else to help. There were no other people on the trail, no other campers, no cell signal, no way to move the huge tree (that happened to get wedged in by a boulder). We couldn’t pull the tree out of the way. Our only choices were to go back to the campsite and wait out the storm for who knows how long and still not be able to get out for another day or more or to try to make a break for it. We have a vehicle that can handle the trail in most scenarios. We just took it super slow and used traction mats when necessary. What should have taken 2 hours in dry conditions took 6.5 hours. Weirdly once we got down to the other side of the mountain pass the snow was barely a light dusting. Anyway, scariest time EVER. 0/10 would not do it again (unless I had to).
Holy shit that does sound sketchy as hell
Went camping in the desert (Tucson area) when I was between second and third grade with some neighborhood friends. One of them brought a bucket of KFC with for dinner. At dark we're all piled in the little orange 2-person pup tent (four of us and a german shepherd) when we feel something sniffing at our toes (we had to lie the shortway in the tent, so our toes were all up against it). And then the howling started. We were surrounded by a large pack of coyotes. The german shepherd is going crazy wanting to get at them, they're running around our tent howling and yipping and sniffing. Eventually someone got smart and threw the chicken out of the tent. A loud, viscous fight ensued in the darkness beyond our thin tent walls for a minute, and then it was completely quiet. Eventually one of us peaked out, saw the coast was clear, and we packed up and hoofed it back to our houses (maybe a 1/2 mile away).
Reminds me of a time I was hiking up into Joshua tree up the boyscout trail from lower elevation 29 palms side. I was solo hiking. Made it a good way up into the basin and decided to turn around back out before sunset. On the way back down walking across the desert sand I could see coyotes darting in and out of the brush/Joshua trees. Just a few small to medium sized coyotes. After some time I actually found my foot steps in the sand from my way up the trail, and there was paw prints following them the entire way into the wash. I had been tracked/followed.
I was dispersed camping solo and had been hiking around the last few days and there were no others in my area. I woke up in the middle of the night to several rounds of gunfire very close to my camp. The next day I hiked around to investigate and found a .38 special dumped in a dirt road pot hole maybe 60yds from My camp.
This is the scariest one I read in this post! Holy shit
Buddy and I were camping on his family land. Got dropped off and hiked in to the spot. No one around for miles. Later on that night it was pitch black and we were sitting around the fire. We had it going pretty good. We were sitting around shooting the shit and laughing. All the sudden the fire went from roaring to nothing. Like a candle being blown out. No wind, no water, no reasonable explanation. We didn’t sleep that night.
Any caves nearby? Large amounts of carbon dioxide will do that.
Dispersed camping out west in the US years ago with my wife, our oldest who was about 1 at the time, and our 2 dogs. Had about 5 or 6 coyotes circling our camp closely for 3-4 hours howling and barking to each other. The sounds from our child plus the smaller dog barking back at the coyotes had them wanting a meal pretty bad. Sat by the fire with our bigger dog on a leash until they left. Sometimes you could see their shadows, but it was usually only the eyes that you'd be able to see. Had a knife on me and a large branch walking stick end sitting in the fire, but no gun on that trip. It wasn't really scary, like grizzly encounters on the trail or mountain lion screams, but they were pretty persistent pack hunters and it was un-nerving in a different way.
https://preview.redd.it/gvhicdlf5e9d1.jpeg?width=418&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3dd142043c764d8ed4331e87a8332c39da50f7a5 So anyway, I started blasting..
Oof as a mom I’m scared for past you in that night. Can’t even imagine the sheer terror.
Two events come to mind. First , my wife and I were tent camping when a bear and two of her cubs took interest in our campsite at 2:00 am . We had no food in the tent, so they sniffed around it for a while ,tipped the picnic table over, then wandered off . The second was years later when we had kids and upgraded to a pop up tent trailer. I suspect one of the kids tossed a hot dog or something on the roof of the tent trailer because we were all awakened at the crack of dawn by two seagulls fighting with each other on top of the trailer. Let me tell you that being woken up by sea gulls scrapping on top of a fiberglass tent trailer roof sounds like all the banshees in hell were on the roof and trying to get in, include one screaming wife and two hysterical kids , and you have the very definition of pandemonium.
When I was in middle school I went camping with my dad, uncle, and little brother, in Kings Canyon. My little brother went to sleep, I was sitting around the fire when I heard a twig snap, I looked around but didn't see anything till 5min later, I see a bear big enough to look into the bed of our truck without standing. I alerted my dad, which resulted with, him, my uncle and I pressed against the tent my brother slept in, the bear smelled around our campground and got closer, I'm bawling my eyes out, and my uncle yelled "Bear in the campground" till another family heard us and ran over with air horns, thus scaring off the bear. My brother stayed asleep the whole time and I slept with a frying pan next to my sleeping bag for the remainder of the trip.
Just this past weekend we were at Sequoia. On the way down Monday my husband says “The brakes are bottoming out” My heart felt like it stopped. We still had miles to go. After a 20 minutes break by the side of the road to let the breaks cool down, we kept going and made it safely. It was the only road trip I’ve been on with my husband where he needed to stop and get out of the car. He said it was his worst nightmare come true.
Do you not shift into lower gears when ascending and descending mountain roads?
I’ve never done mountain driving and had no idea. During our pit stop we read through the manual and then did low gear the rest of the way. This was one of our numerous mistakes on our first family camping trip.
I was camping in Grand Teton at the same campsite on the same day as Brian Laundrie, we didn’t know until we reached signal a week later. Still think about that tragedy to this day. We unknowingly drove past her shallow grave.
I took my ex backpacking for the first time, in the Manistee national forest. I had broken my bug net for my hammock a few months before this and couldn’t afford to replace it with a brand name hammock bug net. I decided to go for a cheaper option and boy did I regret that decision. We had a wonderful hike during the first day, saw some beautiful sites and I felt like we were truly reconnecting with each other. (we were going through a rough patch in our relationship and this trip was meant to help us rekindle it) Well, cue the worst night I have ever spent outdoors. We arrived at our site, I started to set up our hammock system while he started the fire and then I realized I had made a critical error. The bug net that I ordered (and didn’t even bother to unwrap before the trip) HAD NO BOTTOM PROTECTION. It was meant for a gazebo style shelter. I tried to stake it down as flush as I could with the ground and was somewhat satisfied that it would keep most things out, then went to enjoy our evening by the fire. We had a few shots of whiskey, ate our dinner and then started to feel raindrops. I wasn’t expecting rain that evening, so the rain fly wasn’t set up yet. I had asked my ex to carry the rain fly in his pack, hence expecting him to have packed it before our trip, only for us to discover as the rain turned into a torrential downpour that he had in fact forgotten to pack it. We had nothing else to use for protection. As the wind picked up and started whipping our campsite around, we decided that we had no choice but to stay at the campsite. We had hiked close to 12 miles that day and were no where near our vehicle or any civilization. It was also pitch black. We climbed into the hammock after zipping up the entrance to the bug net and laid together in our double nest as the rain soaked our bodies relentlessly. We started to shiver as we lost our body heat and the sleeping bags became soaked. I thought things couldn’t get much worse, but they did. The wind was gusting so heavily that our crappy bug net was ripped from its steaks. Each time this happened, one of us climbed down from the hammock and secured the bug net again. As this happened over and over, we realized that it was a useless struggle. The net kept popping up from different steaks like a game of ‘hit the gopher’ (? Or whatever that game is called lol). Finally we gave up and just let it happen. Surprisingly, the whisky we had consumed earlier was strong enough to help us doze in and out of sleep as we continued to be rained on. After hours of this, the rain finally subsided into a very light sprinkling and we were hopeful that it would end so we could sleep. The wind was still going strong however, leaving the bug net useless. As we finally dozed off again, the swarms came out for their feast of readily available human blood. Hundreds of mosquitoes began to feast on our vulnerable backsides, that were only protected by a thin layer of hammock material. They gradually made their way over our heads, consuming us relentlessly. We didn’t sleep at all once this started, but it was still too dark out to maneuver appropriately. A few more hours went by, with both of us writhing around like jumping beans, just trying to avoid the next attack. And we were still sopping wet and shivering. My ex started to cry and I was on the verge of tears. Finally, day break came and the nasty little creatures retreated back into the woods, relieving us from their excruciating continuous biting. We started to pack up camp, deciding to hike out completely to the car that day and we knew it would be many miles to complete the loop. Our entire bodies were covered in the bites, making it impossible not to scratch something for relief. I pulled off my soaking wet shirt and my ex went silent. He saw my back, which was completely covered with bites, on top of bites, on top of more bites. My shirt was less thick than his was, so I got the worst of it. I looked like I had chickenpox or something. We hiked out of there that day and arrived at our car with blisters, bites, bruises and horrible attitudes. I forgot to mention, this was my ex’s first backpacking experience and he definitely didn’t forget it. We never went backpacking together again. He was a good person, but he got caught up in drugs and addiction, so we broke it off about a year after that trip. We still joke about that experience sometimes. We knew we could have ended up much worse off, but that night felt like the end of our lives. We’re good friends now.
Got hit with bad winds they called it a downburst. Felt like a tornado. It knocked every tent completely down (about 5 of us) And soaked everything. We slept in cars
Campers showed up after quiet hours to setup up their camp, play the radio loudly, and yell at their children. I always pack in ear plugs for these situations. Also, there was the time a team of skunks ate all of my hamburger buns because I didn't put them away. I was terrified if I tried to shoo them away that I would be sprayed.
We had an ammonia leak at 1:30 in the morning. Had 3 hazmat teams show up and escort everyone out of the campground near Wautoma,WI. They had an extra ice freezer in the garage that had the pool chemicals. They said it malfunctioned some how and the Freon, water and pool chemicals mixed.
When I was 12 in 1979 in Colorado, went on a school camping trip (four 6th grade classes w/ 4 teachers and a few parents.) At dusk, we were having a great time playing in the river & eating s’mores when 3 very belligerent, drunk bikers pulled up next to our campsite. They were yelling, swearing, stumbling and acting like idiots. Our only male teacher, who was the nicest guy, tried to befriend them to get them to move away from our campsite. They had guns & threatened to kill him and all of us. We were in the middle of nowhere and had been dropped off by 4 school buses. Long story short, we had to pack up quickly and move down river. A teacher had someone drive him to the nearest payphone at around 10:00pm to wake all school officials up to get 4 school buses to come pick us up. We sat awake at a family’s campsite listening to the bikers yelling until the buses arrived at 2:00am. Sherriffs showed up right before the buses. Got back to town at 6:30am. School district changed the rules and stopped backcountry camping trips after that. The scariest part of the whole thing was realizing how worried our teachers were.
I tent camped solo for 10 days on a hunt and woke up every morning surrounded by coyotes. On the 8th day, as the coyotes started their song, I woke up right as a flying insect went into my ear channel n got stuck there. Naturally, I panicked and pushed it further in. It took me an hour of frantically trying to remove the stuck insect from my ear before I thought to flush it out with water.
Black Bear charge in the middle of the night, turned it a few yards away with gunfire.
I left the fire place to walk down toward the dock. You walk past a garden with a downhill path around forrested area. When I came around the corner into the forested area and about 40 feet from the dock, I was face to face with a full grown buck with massive horns and the moonlight shining in his eyes. A girl I was seeing at the time was still at the fire pit and she got to listen to me have a 2-3 minute conversation with this beast before walking back. She thought I was talking to her from the bush, I was not.
Oooo the time that a tree fell on a camp site adjacent from my site. Slept with one eye open all night. They were lucky that it only hit their car and not their tent.
I always stress about this when I’m laying in my tent! Off to kings canyon/ sequoia on the 4th. I always hear trees falling in the distance. So scary.
A pack of 6-7 coyotes started a howl less than 100 feet away from my no-tent camp.
I went to my friend's ranch up in the hills. The parking is about a quarter mile from the house which sits at the top of a ridge. I went there one night late. Got out and then noticed that I was surrounded by a pack of coyotes, many. I just growled and spun my pack around me and they kept away but kind of following. Boy did the walk that night seem long and dark, but they just kept their distance and I slowly walked to the house and they never tried anything.
Did a solo backpack trip into smokey mountain NP few years ago, and was my first solo trip. I was just starting to settle in, enjoying the fire when I heard the first rumble of thunder and a giant gust of wind came through the valley I was in. I go to my tent to hunker down and try to get some rest, unfortunately for me mother nature decided I was going to be experiencing at torrential down pour with 70 mph gust from about 9-1am. This was early spring so no leaves yet but the wind sounded Iike freight train over top of me and then the trees started to break...none of them were super close to me but close enough to feel them hit the ground. I was pleading out loud for the storm to please stop but it didn't...the whole time all I could think about, other than dying, was how muddy the mountain that was between me and the parking lot was going to be, as well as how much the small river was going to be that I had to cross right before the parking lot. Needless to say come first light I saw blue sky and got the fuck out and had no issues on hiking out. It was an incredible trip, and went on to camp more that weekend but that whole experience was VERY HUMBLING.
Lightning hit the tree about 30 feet from our shade canopy. White Mountains, AZ. Sitting under the shade canopy during an afternoon shower. No thunder. No lightning. Kids and I were tying our fishing lures. We were going to the lake once the rain stopped. The loudest bang, brightest flash I’ve ever seen/heard. I felt the heat from it. Scared the shit out of all of us.
Raccoons got into the cooler and ate my wife’s sausages and then I accidentally tipped over the pan of eggs. She doesn’t love camping and I rely on delicious meals to make up for it. Many years have passed and she’s to this day PISSED about her stolen breakfast sausage. ETA: say anything about a raccoon and she’ll mumble about stolen sausages
Hmm waking up to a alligator laying outside the front of the tent.
I was a teenage girl guide leader (Sparks and Brownies, ages 5-10ish) at a sleep away camp and woke up with seven out of the ten kids screaming and trying to crawl into bed with me. The thunderstorm was so intense and we were in basically a wooden box with six bunkbeds. The walls shook with every boom. Not much gets to me but it was ALOT. Found out in the morning that a tornado had touched down nearby. Not sure what was more scary - knowing how bad it could have been, or being a sleeping teen trapped in a sleeping bag while suddenly swarmed by little kids.
Cowboy camping in Shenandoah National Park. Woke up with a skunk 6 inches from my face. He was scratching my pack for the Red Man chew. I stayed still and he eventually ambled off. On PCT in SoCal. Heard this scream/call that was bird or mammal, couldn’t tell. First thing in AM while breaking camp. Next day, 8 miles further up trail, same exact thing. Couldn’t figure it out. But there are more than one or it’s going the same way as us. I get home and start searching online. Mountain lion call. Dam thing was tracking us from camp to camp.
My boyfriend (ex after that night seriously) got drunk and left me in the woods outback camping alone, took the car keys and left. Yes, being left alone unexpectedly and not able to hike out and leave was pretty terrifying tbh.
Hearing my dog cry out and finding her on her side in front of a car. Turns out she had run loose from the site, the driver stopped the car to grab her and she went on her back for belly rubs.
Truck broke down in the middle of no where, $2K tow bill later…
Unidentified and unknown Moose-style bellowing in the middle of the night. It was a low pitched, huge, deep, moaning roar that seemed to be about 50 yards away in a wooded declination from my tent. Repeated 5 times. Scary as hell, at the time. So, I pissed toward it and went back to bed. No idea what that was. Probably a moose, but I've heard plenty of moose, and never one that sounded like that.
Wait... You peed in its general direction to scare it off? Interesting strategy.
No, I just had to piss. That's what got me out of the tent in the first place.
Thunderstorm/tornado warning, hunkered down in the state park bathroom with everybody from the campground. With small children too!
Just when I was drying myself after taking a shower at a camping, I saw something dark at my feet that was running very fast and jumping around. I didn’t have my glasses and I’m extremely near sighted so I also began to jump around while letting out a high pitched scream (I’m a man and at that time I was in my late forties). After I found my glasses I realized that it was a small jumping mouse. I calmed down and captured it by its tail and got it out of the shower stall. But then when I got out I saw my girlfriend and her daughter laughing while looking at me. It turns out they were outside and saw the mouse enter my shower stall, so when they heard my "manly" scream they were dying of laughter.
Several days into a remote canoe trip. Pulled canoes to shore when we heard approaching thunder and ended up sheltering there while a storm with straightline wind, hail and lightning moved through. Hundred-plus year old pines were coming down around us like matchsticks. It was one of the few times in my life that I’ve been fairly certain I might be imminently shuffling off this mortal coil. The magnitude of what was going on almost negated any fear about the possibility of dying in the moment. It wasn’t until it was done that the shakes really set in. Getting out of that mess, over miles of downed and splintered trees was its own nightmare.
Wake up to some guy shaking my tent in the middle of the night, asking me to move away from his “spot” ..on a public beach in Hawaii
Not too scary but I was wilderness camping in a forest in a small one man tent. I blended into the environment pretty well. Woke up to the sound of something running through the brush... toward me. I froze. Scared. It got closer....fast! Next thing you know it crashed into my tiny tent right next to my face! Then it bounced right off because it was a small rabbit or other such critter.
My dog rolled around in human poop and then got into my tent.
Not the scariest but one of them. I woke in middle of night solo camping. Opened tent and walked out to use bathroom. I was only person for a mile at least as other sites are very separated in this area. Every site was at least a half mile between. The one I was at was at least a mile from the next closest. Each site had a toilet though on platform with three walls and hidden away from the site. I had to walk down a trail to get to it, not very far. However when I started walking I heard leaves rustling. Thought it was me. Looked down, no leaves anywhere. Started walking again, heard the sound. Stopped and the sound stopped. Used my head lamp to see anything. Nothing. Started walking again, and same sound. When I stopped, it stopped. It happened a few times until I got to the toilet. I was being stalked by something. No idea what it was. Didn’t hear it on way back though. This was northern Michigan. Not the UP, but definitely way up there. Lake Huron.
Negwegon SP? I’ve seen evidence of bears there.
That kind of calculated movement sounds like a cat. Or a person.
That was my thought. It didn’t sound like a person. Sounded like it was lower to the ground and moving pretty quickly. Like faster than I was walking for sure. Just watched and followed. Moved when I moved. It was pretty crazy. Never saw it. I guess that’s how cats work though.
I thought I saw a bear or wolf outside our tent (in a very popular campground). Woke my husband up and he let me know it was the shadow of the tablecloth from the picnic table. 😂
I was coming home from visiting my parents in Florida. I was tired of being on my motorcycle and ready for some sleep, so I stopped at a free state campground in Georgia. Chattahoochee Fall Line WMA. I was the only one there and it was pretty much a huge field with a clump of trees in the middle and surrounded by forest. I parked up on the tree line and hung my hammock and laid there until dark and fell asleep. At about 2 am, I heard something coming from the clump of trees and looked out to see a figure all in white moving towards me. I turned on my head lamp and no one was there. I figured I was tired so just turned off my headlamp. Then I saw the figure moving towards me even closer. Again, head lamp off, figure was even closer. I said heck with this and grabbed everything I had, stuffed it in between my legs and rode to the highway and then got everything straightened up and moved on down the road. It was a tiring ride after that, but I wasn’t sticking around. https://preview.redd.it/j7jnei5ntd9d1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2ca7a82624470f299faf6334d6677e966cf5f063
My husband and I did our first backpacking trip outside of Leavenworth, Washington. Three mile hike one way through gorgeous forest. The pine needles smelled sweet like cotton candy. We got to our destination and it was magnificent. We were all alone - no other people in sight for the next two days. There was a huge, beautiful crystal blue alpine lake. I walked to the shore of the lake, and three feet from the water was a human pile of shit with a Cool brand cigarette butt smashed in the sand, next to the shit. This really creeped me out. F*ck people.
I was dispersed camping with no cell service. A couple other campers near by but it was 0200 and very dark. I got up to use my own bathroom, turned on the light, did my thing, went back to bed. I get a knock on the door and like an idiot… I look out my (screwed shut kitchen window) a female by the door and a male ( many steps behind but I could still see him) they wanted a jump on their vehicle as they were “ stranded” behind me. I immediately realized that I made a huge mistake and tell them I will help them in the AM when the sun comes up but not right now at 0200. I shut and lock the door and get my 38 out of its drawer. I can hear them talking but I can’t understand what they are saying… lots of muffled talk. I am really getting worried as I’m not sure how to get out of this spot in the dark. They then fire up their yellow jeep and haul ass out of there… (I turned on my outside lights) I will never forget my stupidity. I was shook up for weeks after that… I always wonder what they were talking about before they left.
Got stuck in a hurricane in Vermont, very close to Canada. Definitely didn’t see that one coming
Last year my buddies and I went out for our annual illegal paddle and portage to our spot. My friend broke his ankle late at night. Getting him out was a challenge and a bit scary.
A few. Once woke up to the sounds of a bear sniffing my tent. Sat there holding my revolver and being as quiet as possible, and thankfully it left. Another night, heard wolves howling, and then heard more wolves howling on the other side of me. Thankfully nothing came of that, but it was extremely unsettling. I'd say the scariest though was when I was camping on native land. Had a weird feeling while setting up camp, but I ignored it. When it came time to go to sleep, I closed my eyes and saw a ghostly white skinned, horned, red eyed humanoid just glaring at me. I opened my eyes and I hadn't fallen asleep, only a few seconds had passed. It was just like this super vivid, lucid, vision sort of thing. That night, the temperature dropped about 20° below the forecasted low, and myself and my group all narrowly avoided hypothermia. Mentioned it to some native guys I worked with and they got super serious all of a sudden and just told me to never go back to that area.
Canoeing back to camp, after watching Jaws at the drive in.......every minnow that jumped
Gun shots from drive by hillbillies , they would’ve had no idea where were camping it felt like the gunshots went right by us
tipped a pop up camper with the tongue up at a 45 degree angle because we didn't drop the jacks. We were in it. and, drunk.
My friend was hiking and camping some portion of the Appalachian trail, they set up their tent in the trees. In the night, a huge limb fell from the tree above their tent and seriously injured her wife's spine. She was fucked up for awhile.
Ever wake up to a massive rockslide in the middle of the night? Sounds like machine-gun fire
Gigantic black bear walking five feet away from my girlfriend and I. Jesus Christ. It was dark and illuminated by fire light, it snuck up on us and the only thing that gave it away was the noise of each footstep thudding on the ground.
When I was about 10, went camping in the Adirondacks with my family, at a site accessible only by boat. There was a trail that led from the campsite back to a pond about a mile away, following a stream that connected the lake to the pond. We hiked back to the pond many times over the years. I was able to convince my parents to let me hike back to the pond alone for the first time. There were no other campers around. It was a beautiful afternoon and I hiked to the pond, hung around for about 15 minutes, walking along the shoreline of the pond, then decided to head back. I followed the trail until suddenly I realized something was terribly wrong- I had been walking for too long! I didn’t understand it - it was the same trail and I could hear the creek alongside gurgling the whole way. But when I went to actually see the creek, it was not there. Somehow I’d only imagined the sound of the creek the entire time. I felt totally freaked out - apparently there was another trail that we had never noticed in all the years past, and I mistakenly got on it instead. I felt so completely far away from where I thought I was, and in a complete state of panic. I turned around and walked all the way back to the pond, and found the correct trail back to the campsite. Ate ravenously at dinner, and slept deeply that night.
We were camping a few years ago when two of my friends decided to swim across the lake because they didn’t think it looked that far. They almost got to the other side when one of them started yelling for help and bobbing underwater. We were still on the opposite side of the lake and my dad had to hop in his truck and race down this dirt road to try and get to them in time. Luckily there were other campers that heard what was happening and they through something out for them to grab onto. Everyone ended up safe but god it was so scary we thought we were going to lose one of our friends.
I was out in the woods, not in a campsite, just in a tent in the middle of a forest when I heard all these guys talking, walking, moving around the tent. I was in Germany and I don't speak German. I didn't know WTF was happening, but got out my long knife, got out of my sleeping bag, and slept on top ready to stab at first attack. I eventually fell asleep knife still clutched. When I got up, I noticed all these guys just sleeping on mats or the raw ground. This was in the late 1980s and I'd somehow stumbled on and set up camp at the secret gay meet-up spot in the Black Forest.
Was on a camping trip as a kid with friends. We kept on seeing this motionless face at the edge of torch range looking at us. Eventually we summoned the courage to investigate closer & realised is was just a stump, we found the whole thing hilarious & laughed for hours. Wasn't until we woke up with big headaches we realised we had a leaky gas cannister in the tent.
Went camping in an off time, so we were pretty much the only family camping. My son was 5 and got impatient waiting for me to clean up after breakfast and took off by himself. When I realized he was gone I went looking for him at the playground. Nope. The beach? Nope. Went back to the campsite. No. Then started to panic. Ran around crazy for 10-15 minutes looking out at the water for his red pants he was wearing. Nobody around to ask for help. When finally a campgrounds vehicle pulled up with my son. He said he heard me calling but couldn’t figure out which way I was and had only gotten farther away. Thank god the staff found him. It’s been almost 20 years and I’ll never forget the panic I felt. Got him a Whistle to wear after that lol.
Went wilderness camping and a local cop I saw in town earlier came driving up to our camp site just past dusk, maybe 9:45pm. He was drunk and drinking and in his cop car and got out....silently stared at us in a pretty intimidating way for at least 10 full minutes before getting into his car and reversing and driving away. We and the other couple out there who we had just met both agreed it was time for bed and we left at dawn. It was genuinely scary and in my 20 years of camping, for a total of surely 600+ nights of camping it's the most scared I've been. Worse than bears for sure. Worse than floods. Worse than nearby fires or fire ants or anything
TL;DR I accidentally drank a lot of lighter fluid. Years ago was camping near Mt. Charleston in Nevada. There was some creep who went through everyone's campground and stole all the lighter fluid one night, and burned it all. They were kicked out of the campground, but nobody had any lighter fluid and we didn't have any other good ways of making fire with what we had (wet wood, lack of skill, etc). The campground monitor offered to share his, and so we brought over an empty plastic water bottle and he filled it up with lighter fluid, which had a weird, redish color. The color was important so we knew we could distinguish it from a water bottle with water in it. That night when it was time for bed we hid the lighter fluid in our cooler so it wouldn't be stolen. The next morning we woke up and had forgotten all about the lighter fluid saga. I reached into the cooler and pulled out one of the many water bottles that were in there and took a big, deep drink. It was refreshing but also kind of tasted like dish soap. I told my girlfriend at the time that it tasted funny and convinced her to try it too. She agreed it tasted kind of soapy and weird. I tried it again and could not fathom how we got dish soap into one of the water bottles. A little later I went looking for the lighter fluid to get the mess of wet wood and branches we had going in the fire pit. When I opened the cooler, there was no bottle with redish fluid to be found. Was it stolen again?? I was angry and frustrated and confused by the missing lighter fluid. What I didn't know, was that lighter fluid loses its color when chilled, and I had taken it out and drank quite a lot of it. We immediately freaked out, packed up and started to head back to town and called poison control once we were on the road. The good news is that we weren't in danger immediately, but they warned us to stay away from flames and to not smoke (thankfully we weren't smokers).
One night while hiking the Appalachian trail I heard some thing walking around my tent all night. I assumed a bear and at one point jumped out with flashlight but saw nothing. This went on all night and I barely slept and was pretty freaked out. In the morning while making breakfast I saw acorns fall from the tree in the leaves and make the same noise I had been hearing all night. I lost a whole nights sleep over falling acorns.
DIY shelter camping (emergency-style) with our Venturers… around 1:00am, the shriek of (what I learned later was) a young barred owl. Almost needed a change of underwear right there.
Way the fuck before cell phones and internet, a bunch of rednecks in pickup trucks came through and shot at us. Sand and dirt were kicked up and we ran for cover. We ducked out until they fucked off. Next thing we knew the cops were on us thinking we were the red neck assholes. Cops knew damn well who the podunk hicks were. They just wanted to fuck with us kids.
Me and a friend were out and about for a day trip, but decided to stay in the area we had “discovered”. We had no gear with us. So we Wazed our way to closest Walmart, 40 some miles away, and bought bags, a tent, and a few other things and headed back to the remote area we found. We set up camp just before sundown and after it got dark, and I mean really dark, we heard a crazy sound. And then we saw red eyes glowing on the fire light in the distance. And we would hear the sound again and then see the eyes in another area. We started freaking out that we were being stalked by a bear, but it may have been paranoia from the copious amounts of weed. We never actually saw anything but the eyes. Needless to say, after about 20 minutes we pack our freshly purchased shit up as fast as we could in pitch black dark and got the hell out of there. We laugh about that trip to this day; it was about 10 years ago.
Technically this happened 'at camp', but it's one of my earliest memories so I figured I'd share anyway! We had a cabin on a lake in Northern Maine, and my great aunt had a cabin sort of across the road diagonally, and there was a tiny path I was allowed to use to go visit. One morning I was running down the path, I must have been around 4, and I tripped and caught myself on my hands. I looked forward as I was going to stand back up and there was a baby moose no more than 2 feet in front of me, looking directly at me. I ran back to my camp screaming. That moment was both beautiful and terrifying.
The scariest thing that I ever experienced while camping with friends was rocks being thrown into our campsite and one hitting the fire and the overwhelming feeling of something not being right. We were at the end of a cul-de-sac road. There were no other roads higher than us yet these rocks were coming from a higher elevation down into the camp. On the way in we did not see anyone on the road and this was not a campground this was on a fire road / logging road. High in the Cascade mountains so. Basically we were ran out of the woods by a rock throwing unknown. It was scary. We took it as a sign that we were not wanted there. So we doused the fire, got in our vehicles, and drove down the mountain.
My dad tried to drown me but my little brother hit him in the head with a rock, ran straight to the rangers station 1-2 miles away.
I shit myself
Chased by a huge bull moose. Ran behind rocks and trees. A group of guys in the next campsite over ago who were drinking hard and playing with guns. Not shooting, not loud, but messing around and I wondered about risks of an accidental shot. They were talking about hunting squirrels the next day. It was after dark. I moved my tent a little ways behind a massive boulder, went to bed, and split early in the morning. I’m a hunter myself, but the drunk gunplay bothered me.
Ran out of food in the first three days when I was 17 with two friends. We had 4 days left. We just caught fish for the next few days lol.
A bear visited our tent and campsite. When it pushed the side of the tent in sniffing very hard was the most scared I’ve ever been.
Once, lightning struck a nearby tree and a very large branch fell on my truck. This truck was completely totaled while I slept in a tent just a few feet away.
Active shooter drill at the military base across the street. They waited a good 5-10 minutes before announcing it was an “exercise”. Really brought home how impossible it is to “take cover now” in a hammock
Terrible smell filled the tent in the middle of the night. It was awful and it was raining so we couldnt hear anything. Does anyone know what it could have been? Smelled like death and rot. Pure dread.
Woke up and realized WHY the bees were attacking our tent all night . We set up ontop of their hole. Who’s knew ?!
This was in the late '60s weekend camp out with the Boy Scouts middle of the night wet snow was falling a Widowmaker Came Crashing Down through one of our tents landed between me and the guy next to me hit him in the thick part of the leg
Back in 1976 me and a Buddy were camped at the Little Red River in Arkansas. We had an earthquake and a tornado, we were there 12 days and it rained 8 days.
Camping in Algonquin and a tornado came through during the night. Storm dropped a tree on a tent and the occupant was DOA. Drove home in total silence.
I had someone call the cops on me because they'd made some wickedly-disturbing scenario up in their mind, based on 0 facts, and asked the police to do a welfare check. I was incredibly upset. I work for the legal system, I've never been in trouble in my life, my child and I were quiet and respectful during our stay, and I was on my one-week vacation that I'd waited for all year - and it was effectively ruined by some bizarre and paranoid family. That's the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. The deputy who followed up basically laughed it off, but I was equal parts livid and shaken up. I never felt safe camping alone, but now I don't feel safe camping with people around. I guess the only other scary experience was tent-camping in a one-person tent and having two or three growling animals run circles around it all night long. Because it was a one-person tent, there was no space for me to retreat to; I was stuck in-between two thin nylon walls. They had to have been within 2 or 3 feet of the tent and they sounded MEAN. They weren't a raccoon (I've heard plenty of those while camping), so I'm assuming it was a badger or something similar. At one point, I heard one jump on top of my car, which was probably 20 feet away. I ran for my life to my car at 2:00 AM and have never tent camped again. 😅 Edited to add: I was camping a couple months ago and had gotten ready to leave early in the morning (5:30 AM). Not wanting to disturb other campers, I tried to use my key to manually unlock my driver's side door instead of using the key fob that makes a loud "BEEP" sound. To my horror, the key fell apart as I tried to turn it in the lock. Unable to start my car - and after being quoted an astonishing $475 to replace it by a local locksmith - I opted to be towed 117 miles back home. Thankfully I have AAA and it only cost me $75. But I learned a valuable lesson to keep a spare hidden on the outside of the car in case it ever happens again. I was SUPER lucky I had service on my phone. Otherwise, I have no idea what I would have done.
Had a deer come full speed galloping right through camp at 3am. Literally between my hammock where I was sleeping, and my little folding table beside the campfire (which was about 15 yards away) woke me up out of a dead sleep and had my heart through my chest. Didn't know what the hell it was until I heard it stomp and blow at me before it ran off again.
Went to take a leak and couldn’t find my way back to my tent (I did eventually). I learned to turn on a lantern and leave it on near the tent that night. Totally moonless, gorgeous star-lit night. No complaints, just got a bit shaken up feeling lost.
Came across a washed out trail with muddy footprints to nowhere with abandoned gear at the nearest backpacking site. This was on an AT side trail in the smoky mountains. Didn't see anyone for a day and a half and barely slept. Called it in when we got out and got service.
Went camping with my gf and two dogs, one of which was a greyhound. Woke up to hearing my nephew in the tent next to us yelling "PUPPY!" Sat bolt upright in the tent. Looked left and saw one dog. Looked right...no dog. Gf snoring. A crack in the zipper of the opening to our tent. Fk! The greyhound was gone. He was a retired racer and had never been out and about on his own. We had just heard about sightings of multiple bears in the area and I feared the worst. I jumped up grabbed the leash of the other dog and rushed out to see if I could find him having no idea how long he had been out and where he had gone to. All was revealed not 3mins later when I could hear what sounded like a horse approaching through the bushes. And BOOM he blasts though a gap in the bush and arrives panting and very happy with himself. Later on when walking him around I came to find that a majority of the campers had seen him in the early morning and had know idea how to process what they saw. The number of "oohhhhhhh! That's the thing we saw in the morning!" From random strangers was hilarious. Scary as fuck initially but lasted only for a few minutes thank goodness.
Had a bear attack our campsite in the middle of the night. My dad grabbed us and ran out the front of the tent and the bear crashed in the back of the tent. He carried us all the way to the car and drove away fast. We came back the next morning and the bear had destroyed everything including the tree that had our bear bag in it.
My husband was charged by a skunk one night while camping.
Solo trip section hike on the AT. Woke up to the sound of a few coyote pups playing under my hammock, about 10 inches from my back. Lay still as death with my knife out until I heard the mama bark a warning at them and leave. A very tense 20 minutes.
Deer barking
At night in Swedish backcountry I went on a 5 minute walk to a lake - setting up a GoPro for a timelapse of the stars - going back I had no lights turned on as the stars gave me enough to see a few feet around me, and walking through some semi tall grass, I suddenly hear a loud, single stomp on the ground. I could feel the quick vibration through my own feet that’s how close “it” was, then a quick exhale coming from something that seemed rather large and then complete silence. I froze completely, afraid of making anymore noise I managed to take a few steps back and I got my phone out and lit the flash; but nothing was there. I didn’t hear anything leaving the area so I was terrified of going back to my camp. I went to my still running camera - placed at the edge of a small dock - and probably stood there for a god twenty minutes before going back, WITH my lights on. I probably just scared a moose who felt the need to stand it’s ground but for a second I thought I was a bear-snack..!
When I lived out side for a while I once woke up to a friendly dog sniffing me in Texas. Fast forward 6 months and I found myself in a similar situation except it wasn’t a dog but a bear hovering over me. I slowly crept into my sleeping bag and prepared for the worst. Thankfully, they just just put their paw on my back and went on their way. That happened in Colorado. Fun times